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Clinton says speaking fees went to foundation

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at a symposium on advancing Afghan women at Georgetown University in Washington in this November 15, 2013, file photo.

By Wesley Lowery, Washington Post

Posted July 05, 2014, at 2:14 p.m.

Hillary Rodham Clinton told ABC News on Friday she has donated all the money she was paid for speeches on college campuses during the past year and a half to her family’s foundation.

“All of the fees have been donated to the Clinton Foundation for it to continue its life-changing and lifesaving work, so it goes from a foundation at a university to another foundation,” Clinton told Ann Compton of ABC News. Clinton was in London promoting her new book, “Hard Choices.”

The Washington Post reported this week that Clinton likely made more than $1 million for speaking at eight universities — including four public schools — during the past year.

The University of Connecticut — which just raised tuition by 6.5 percent — paid $251,250 from a donor fund for Clinton to speak on campus in April. Other examples include $300,000 to speak at the University of California at Los Angeles in March and $225,000 for a speech scheduled for October at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

The potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate also has been paid for speeches at the University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York; Colgate University and Hamilton College, both in New York; as well as Simmons College in Boston and the University of Miami in Florida — all of which declined to say how much they paid Clinton.

If the former secretary of state earned her standard fee of $200,000 or more, that would mean she took in at least $1.8 million in speaking income from universities in the past nine months.

Several political strategists say Clinton’s campus speaking fees could become a political liability for the potential 2016 presidential candidate, since top Democrats — including President Barack Obama and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts — have made income inequality and college affordability central to the party’s agenda.